Early election results from the Wake County Commissioner primary
This election year, the Wake County Board of Commissioners will grow from seven to nine seats with two new at-large seats in addition to the seven district seats.
Christine Kushner and Mona Singh were the two top vote getters in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for those seats, with all 216 precincts reporting around 11:30 p.m.
Kushner, 62, served for 11 years on the Wake County Board of Education, and watched the election results from Player’s Retreat in Raleigh.
“I am really humbled by the turnout and the support I’ve had,” she said. “It’s a really great opportunity for me to use my experience and the years that I’ve been active in our community to take to the commission and focus on issues that many of us care about.”
Public education, social services, public health and specifically mental health are areas that Kushner said she hopes to focus on if elected to the seat in November.
“I’m happy to see the results and just the fact that I beat two people who’ve been elected officials for a long time,” Singh said. “But that makes me feel that the people of Wake County are smart, that they understand what’s good for them.”
If elected, she said she’d aim to break down silos and bring different “methodologies” to county work.
“Coming from the corporate world, the rigor of working in the corporate world actually does have benefits to it,” Singh said. “I’m really excited that I’ll be able to do that because that’s what the county needs and what’s kind of missing.”
There are seven Democratic candidates for two seats:
- Marguerite Creel, educator at BrianTrust Tutors
- Christine Kushner, self-employed policy analyst and former Wake County Board of Education member
- Jonathan Lambert-Melton, current Raleigh City Council member
- Kimberly McGhee, small business owner
- Robert Mitchener, retired former deputy sheriff
- Steve Rao, former Morrisville Town Council member
- Mona Singh, a self-employed intellectual property consultant and Wake County Democratic volunteer
It used to be that the district candidates were required to live within the district, but they were voted on by the entire county.
State Rep. Erin Pare forced the county to change how it elects commissioners, adding the two at-large seats and making it so district candidates are only voted on by district voters.
The two Democrats will face Republicans Gary Dale Hartong and Kyle Stogoski in the General Election on Nov. 3. However, Wake County is a left-leaning county where a Republican hasn’t been elected to the Wake County Board of Commissioners since 2012.
Incumbents Don Mial, Cheryl Stallings and Vickie Adamson, all Democrats, have filed for re-election and face no challengers.
Incumbent Safiyah Jackson, a Democrat, will face Republican challenger John Adcock for the District 2 seat in the general election.
This story was originally published March 3, 2026 at 9:31 PM.
